Suspect in anthrax hoaxes is caught

News briefs

Posted: Thursday, December 06, 2001

By Compiled from wire reports

SPRINGDALE, Ohio -- An escaped convict suspected of mailing hundreds of anthrax hoax letters to abortion clinics was captured Wednesday at a copy shop outside Cincinnati after employees recognized him from his wanted poster.

Clayton Lee Waagner -- who once testified that God told him to kill abortion doctors -- was one of the FBI's 10 most-wanted fugitives.

He had been on the run since February, when he escaped from a jail in Clinton, Ill., while awaiting sentencing for weapons offenses and auto theft.

Federal marshals had distributed a wanted poster to Kinko's stores after learning Waagner was using the stores' computers to log on to anti-abortion Web sites and check e-mail.

Attorney General John Ashcroft has called Waagner the primary suspect behind anthrax hoaxes committed against 280 clinics last month. The clinics received envelopes containing white powder and letters signed by the ''Army of God.'' The powder was not anthrax.

Levin will retire at AOL Time Warner

NEW YORK -- Almost two years after negotiating the mega-merger that created AOL Time Warner, chief executive Gerald Levin announced Wednesday that he will retire next year from the world's largest media company.

Levin, 62, will be replaced by co-chief operating officer Richard Parsons. While the timing surprised some colleagues and industry analysts, his departure did not appear to be forced or the result of any friction with other executives.

Levin said he simply had accomplished what he set out to do, and is ready to leave the corporate world for other challenges. He will retire at the company's board meeting in May.

Steve Case will remain as AOL Time Warner's chairman, while the company's other co-chief operating officer, Robert Pittman, will become the sole chief operating officer, the company said in a statement.

Ex-governor tapped as next GOP chief

WASHINGTON -- Former Montana Gov. Marc Racicot pledged aggressive efforts to raise money and attract minorities to the GOP after President Bush moved Wednesday to install the loyalist as head of the Republican National Committee.

Racicot said he will keep his job with a Washington law firm, making him a lobbyist with an open door to the White House.

He did not promise to step away from cases that could present a conflict of interest, but said he would disclose ''occasions where you may intersect, either with a courtroom, or a commission, or an executive branch agency.''

Racicot said he is ''very, very keenly sensitive to making certain that the president's goals and objectives are never compromised, or placed in a light that would not meet with his very, very high standards of conduct.'' He called the RNC job ''volunteer work'' for which he will not be paid.

Bush tapped Racicot as part of a move to strengthen the party heading into next year's elections, when control of Congress and three dozen statehouses are at stake. Party leaders are expected to endorse the selection next month.

Church shooting leaves questions

BRATTLEBORO, Vt. -- He went before the congregation just as the service was to begin. Weeping, he asked for help, for ''political sanctuary.''

But All Souls Unitarian Universalist Church -- which has long welcomed the downtrodden and the mentally ill -- couldn't offer sanctuary to Robert A. Woodward on Sunday.

Gently asked to take a seat or leave, Woodward pulled a knife. Police were called. After making what authorities called threatening moves with the blade, he was gunned down at the altar and died at a hospital.

The police shooting in a church known for its peace activism left the congregation in shock. And it left many of the roughly 10,000 residents of a community known for its left-leaning politics, where a faded ''Question Authority'' bumper sticker is not an uncommon sight, doing just that.

People wanted to know why the officers fired seven shots with their semiautomatic pistols rather than just one, or why they didn't subdue Woodward with the pepper spray they carry, or just tackle him.

''It appears as though there will have to be a high burden on those who pulled the trigger to show that there were no other means to deal with this situation,'' said Benson D. Scotch, director of the Vermont office of the American Civil Liberties Union.

State authorities are investigating the shooting to determine whether it was justified.